How do you deal with severe burn out and being worn out?

Ive been doing my startup for two years and I’m severely burnt out, worn out and exhausted. I don’t want to even think about the startup right now. I need the energy to push through and try a few more things and then if that doesn’t work I’ll admit failure and move on, but I have no passion anymore and I’m dragging my feet. How can I reignite the spark and move past this extreme physical and emotional burn out and exhaustion? Taking it easy for the holidays didn’t help at all.

This might not be want you wanted to hear but you may have passed the burnout stage and be in the depression stage. I’ve been there. I had to stop, take antidepressant, see a psychologist and rest. It took me a good month to start feeling better and see mood changes. After 3 months I was up and running.

Granted that you may not have the luxury to completely stop like I did but you need to take action. Start by talking to your doctor. The talk to a psychologist, work normal hours and make sure that at least take a 30-60 min walks outside every single day.

Be careful, if you still try to bulldoze your way through it, you way be incapacitated for much longer. I know people that were stopped for over a year and are still not able to function properly still.

I had the same issue and ended up shutting the whole thing down. I am a bit of a workaholic by nature, so I’m perfectly happy working myself into the ground if I have something to show for it. But I didn’t, and it wasn’t worth it to continue putting so much into something that had given me nothing in return. So now, four years after deciding to do my ill-fated startup, I have another one I’m working on! It’s pretty horrible when you’re in the trenches, but life goes on.

Follow the age old trusted and reliable formula ” A man is known by the company he keeps”. Be surrounded by people who are positive minded, it does not matter whether they are involved in Start Up or not. Gender and age does not matter, it can even be children as young as six months to one year.
If you are a nature lover, pl spend time in the midst of nature without your cell phone, the less the number of people the better it is, just the flora and fauna. Get into the life process of nature, the struggles it undergoes, the trees that are barren without the leaves and flowers during the winter and yet spring with life after bearing the bitter cold. Trust me, it fills you with hope and confidence. So do the animals which hibernate for months together.
Focus on something other than the Start Up. Any subject of your interest, it can be a book, a painting or even music.
Focus on totally unrelated topic and try to get an insight into the topic. It will will give you new ideas for your Start Up.

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